1987 hockey card of former Los Angeles King Luc Robitaille. A 2009 inductee into the Hockey Hall of Fame, Robitaille, having played 14 seasons in L.A., holds most of the Kings’ career scoring records. He won a Stanley Cup as a member of the Detroit Red Wings in 2002. He was the highest scoring left winger in NHL history upon his retirement in 2005.
Last season the National Football League celebrated the 50th anniversary of the league that was once a fierce rival, the American Football League. The eight original AFL teams were allowed to wear “throwback” uniforms in selected games,honoring the early years of those franchises. Our local team, the Buffalo Bills, had one of the sweetest retro uniforms of any of the old AFL teams – in fact some fans have lobbied to have the “throwbacks” become the team’s regular uniforms. The team has produced a plethora of memorabilia over the years that have become popular with collectors, starting with early game day programs that feature the “Buffalo Bill” cartoon character. One of the team’s early logos featured a player, wearing jersey number 31, running with the ball alongside a herd of buffalo. That jersey number was not worn by any player for many years because of the logo. Of course, any Bills’ fan today worth his or her salt knows that young star safety Jairus Byrd now dons the number. Those annoying vuvuzela horns that dominated the recent World Cup soccer tournament were a huge story, but how many people remember that at one time the Bills sold similar red plastic horns to the fans at old War Memorial Stadium? Or that the horns so annoyed then coach Lou Saban that he had them banned from the stadium after only one game? How many of those horns are still around today? In the Chuck Knox era in the early 1980s, somebody in the Bills’ marketing department came up with the idea of the “Whammy Weenie”. It was some disturbing promotion for a hot dog company, if I remember right, and was green and kind of perverted looking. Fans were encouraged to shake them when the Bills did something good on the field (they had noisemaker-type beads inside). Here’s a link to read more about this infamous promotion: http://www.forgottenbuffalo.com/forgottenbflofeatures/whammyweenie.html
This was just a plain bad idea, and it’s doubtful if many of those “Whammy Weenies” survived, which makes it a great collector’s item. A great memorabilia item from the team’s glory days of the 1990s would be the “Zubaz” pants, a form of sweat pants with a strange, sort of “camouflage” design, in the team’s colors. A few pairs of these can still be spotted around even today, but they are usually as tattered looking as the old number 34 Thurman Thomas jersey that you have hanging in the closet. Yes, you wore it to the comeback game and it’s a good luck charm, so of course, you can’t possibly throw it out, right?
Logo of the National Basketball Association’s Baltimore Bullets, who later transferred to Washington, D.C. The franchise still plays in the nation’s capital, but the team was renamed the Wizards so as not to promote gun violence among young fans. Before playing in Baltimore, the franchise was located in Chicago, and was known first as the Packers, then the Zephyrs.
1968 football card of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Len Dawson, a Hall of Famer. Dawson quarterbacked the Chiefs to 3 American Football League championships, one in the league’s third season of existence when they were still the Dallas Texans. The other title game victories sent the Chiefs on to Super Bowls, as they lost the first Super Bowl ever, to Green Bay, then got retribution in Super Bowl IV by defeating the Minnesota Vikings.
The major league baseball season now heads into the second half as its’ All-Star game, which is the closest thing to a real display of the actual sport as any of the pro all-star games, is now concluded. For the first time in 13 seasons the National League won and whatever team wins the NL pennant will now have home field advantage over it’s AL opponent. Figuring out which teams in both leagues will persevere into the post-season is even harder this year than usual. In the American League, the New York Yankees are a given. In an earlier post I posed the question of whether the Tampa Bay Rays would be able to stay with the Yanks for the long haul, and so far they have. The Chicago White Sox have risen from the dead to take over the lead in the AL Central, and the Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers are still contending. The expectation early on was that the Los Angeles Angels would win the AL West, but the Texas Rangers had other plans, and have shown they mean business by acquiring Cliff Lee for their rotation. I’m going to go out on a limb and write off the Boston Red Sox right now. I don’t expect them to remain a post-season threat. I also see the Twins overtaking both Detroit and Chicago to win the Central, and the Rangers to hold on and win the West, especially now that they have Lee. I see the Rays as the AL Wild Card, leaving the Angels, Chisox, Tigers and Red Sox empty-handed. In the National League, all 3 divisions have great races going, with multiple teams involved in 2 of the divisions. I expect St. Louis, with their experience, to out-wrestle the Cincinnati Reds for the NL Central crown. In the East, I’m starting to believe in the New York Mets. I see them winning the division, with the Phillies grabbing the wild card and the Braves falling out of the race eventually. There are 4 teams battling for the NL West title, and I see only one of them surviving into post-season play. My choice to win this tight division are the surprising San Diego Padres. They have strong pitching, a young, exciting lineup and a great manager in Bud Black. I think Joe Torre’s L.A. Dodgers will give them the toughest battle among the remaining division teams still alive, with the Rockies and Giants falling out of the race eventually.
A logo of another World Hockey Association team, the Denver Spurs. The Spurs came into existence in 1975 after Denver was spurned by the NHL when the established league cancelled expansion plans after initially awarding Denver a “conditional” franchise. The team was a failure at the box office and eventually folded in 1976, but Denver wound up in the NHL after all in ’76 when the Kansas City Scouts moved there and became the Colorado Rockies.
This is a 1956 Topps baseball card of Boston Red Sox outfielder Jim Piersall. Piersall played for 5 different teams between 1950 and 1967 and had a decent major league career, but is best known for struggling with bi-polar disorder and being portrayed by Anthony Perkins (of Psycho fame) in the movie Fear Strikes Out. This is a line from Piersall’s autobiography: “Probably the best thing that ever happened to me was going nuts. Who ever heard of Jimmy Piersall, until that happened?” He worked as a baseball broadcaster after his playing career ended, including a stint with the Chicago White Sox where he was teamed with Harry Caray. Those must have been anything but boring broadcasts.
The countdown is on again as far as what Brett Favre is going to do this season, as reports come in that he is working out with high school players in his hometown. After the season Favre had last year, I don’t see any way he retires. With Favre back, most would say the Minnesota Vikings are favorites to win the NFC North again, without him they could possibly bring up the rear in the division. In my opinion the favorites to win the division are the Green Bay Packers, and if Favre plays, the Vikings finish second. Green Bay had a great 2009 season, with Aaron Rodgers coming into his own as Favre’s replacement. I know the Vikings won both head-to-head matchups between the teams, but that won’t happen this season. Green Bay’s defense betrayed them in the playoffs against Arizona, and Rodgers wound up being a goat for turning the ball over to cost them the game. I feel defensive coordinator Dom Capers will straighten out the defense going into this year, and I like Packer coach Mike McCarthy over the Vikings’ Brad Childress. Favre played great last year but with the offense revolving around him, all-pro back Adrian Peterson’s play suffered. Childress has got to figure out a way to get Peterson more involved and pull in the reins on Favre this season, especially since defenses will be gearing up to stop the aging quarterback. I also feel the Vikings will miss Peterson’s backup, Chester Taylor, more than they realize. Taylor was an important part of their offense, and the fact he now plays for divison rival Chicago, and will face the Vikes twice, will have even more of an impact. The Bears could be a dark horse in the division. Coach Lovie Smith will be on the hot seat this year, as the “political capital” he built up by taking the Bears to the Super Bowl a few years ago begins to fade. The addition of Julius Peppers to the defense will certainly help, especially if Brian Urlacher stays healthy. The Bears have enough impact players on defense to be competitive, and their offense should be among the league’s best, “should” being the key word. “Should” turns into “will” when Jay Cutler becomes consistent at quarterback. The Detroit Lions, the laughing-stock of not only the NFC North but the entire NFL for a few years now, are starting to turn the corner, and I believe they will surprise some people this year. General manager Martin Mayhew has put some key pieces in place – coach Jim Schwartz seems to be well-liked by both players and fans so far, Matthew Stafford looks like the real deal as the Lions’ QB of the future, his main target, Calvin Johnson, is one of the NFL’s best, and the addition of Ndamukong Suh to the defense is a major building block. It’ll be up to Schwartz to begin molding his young stars into a competitive team, but there’s no doubt Mayhew has made a lot of good moves.
There have been so many different incarnations of Washington baseball teams over the years that it’s hard to keep track of them. This logo is of the American League Washington Nationals, who existed from 1901 to 1958, not to be confused with the current National League Nationals or the version of the AL Senators that was born after the original Senators were moved to Minnesota. Actually the team was known as the both the Nationals and Senators for many years (the fans never warmed up to the Nationals name), with the name affectionately abbreviated to the “Nats”. The owner finally gave in and officially renamed the team the Senators in 1956. A very confusing story for a team that always seemed to be a very confused organization.
1973 Topps basketball card of former Los Angeles Laker Pat Riley. Riley was basically a spare part as a player for the Lakers but would later coach them to multiple NBA titles. Riley currently runs the Miami Heat and was responsible for assembling the free agent “dream team” of Dwayne Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh.
